phelps

first medals of the season almost ready to be contested...women's 500m A Final is starting in a minute or so...

Tokyo 2020 triathlon and cross country eventing start times to move (further) forward due to heat Start times for triathlon and the cross-country stage of equestrian competition will be brought forward due to heat concerns, Tokyo 2020 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) revealed today (actually, yesterday). In a joint press conference dominated by the decision to move marathon and race-walk events to Sapporo amid fears over extreme heat, Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori confirmed talks around other events. "Discussions have been taking place over the times of competition for triathlon and equestrian," he said. "We have come to a common understanding with the IOC and International Federations to bring forward competition times." "With regard to the triathlon, the men's, women's and mixed relay will be moved forward by one hour." "In equestrian we will change the starting time for the cross-country event." "This will now start at between 7.30 or 8am." The men's and women's triathlon events are due to take place at the Odaiba Marine Park on July 27 and 28, respectively. Both competitions are currently scheduled to begin at 7.30am, so the proposed change will move that to 6.30am. The mixed team relay is set to be brought forward from 8.30am to 7.30am at the same venue on August 1. The Tokyo 2020 test event in August saw organisers reduce the distance of the run from 10 kilometres to 5km due to extreme heat. The swimming and cycling segments of the event were unchanged. Cross-country eventing is currently scheduled to take place from 8.30am to 11.55am on August 2 at the Sea Forest Cross-Country Course. The proposed change could see it begin one hour earlier. Revised start times for both sports will be subject to approval of the IOC Executive Board. They will be the latest changes to start times, with organisers having already determined longer-distance athletics events over 5,000 metres to be scheduled in the evening, not the morning. All morning matches at the rugby sevens will finish before 12pm and mountain bike races have been delayed until 3pm.

men's 1500m skaters qualified to the A Final Keita Watanabe Charles Hamelin Kazuki Yoshinaga (advanced by the jury) Park In Wook Alexander Shulginov Kim Dong Wook Semen Elistratov

and once again, bye-bye Han Tianyu...

Chinese skaters (both men and women) are playing this like it's rollerball, not short track speedskating...

women's 1500m skaters qualified to the A Final Arianna Fontana Arianna Sighel Kim Alang Zhang Yuting Han Yutong Kim Boutin Suzanne Schulting

wow! that was quite an elbow by the Chinese Zang on Lockett's nose! and she rightly gets a DQ... which means that we have 2 Italian girls in the A Final...

men's 500m, race #1 skaters qualified to the A Final Wu Dajing Victor An Hwang Dae Heon Shaoang Liu

women's 500m, race #1 skaters qualified to the A Final Martina Valcepina Yara Van Kerkhof Petra Jaszapati Natalia Maliszewska

has short track changed the interpretation of their rules? last year they used to DQ everybody for doing nothing...in today's second semifinal heat of the women's 500m the judges closed their eyes in fron of 3 big faults and let the final positions on the ice stand despite that...

game over... United States, 9 b. Netherlands, 0

the United States are just thrashing the Kingdom of the Netherlands out so far...7-0 after 7 innings...

Sebastien "Seppe" Smits and Bart Swings probably are somehow offended right now... and on a minor scale, also Kevin Van Der Perren... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppe_Smits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Swings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_van_der_Perren

I'm very disappointed about Alessio's loss...not because he lost against Kotkov (who's a very good TKD player himself, multiple global events medallist in the last few years), but how he lost... he started almost perfectly, took a good lead in the first moments of the fight...and then he suddenly fell asleep and let the Russian comeback strong, losing his focus, forgetting to follow the strategy that gave him the early lead and trying to land pretentious kicks and meaningless punches when it was his turn to try and comeback to save the bout... OK, he's still very young, but his coach isn't (anymore) and he's always a reigning world champion...so, I didn't expect such repeated tactical mistakes from him (once it's just an unsuccessful attempt and it's OK, but multiple times...definitely not)...

Day #2 Medallists women's -57kg Gold: Irem Yaman Silver: Jade Jones Bronze: Marta Calvo Gomez & Raheleh Asemani men's -68kg Gold: Javier Polo Perez Silver: Bradly Sinden Bronze: Alexey Denisenko & Si Mohamed Ketbi men's -80kg Gold: Anton Kotkov Silver: Toni Kanaet Bronze: Simone Alessio & Denys Voronovskyi

yeah, Field Hockey is not exactly a popular sport in Italy...no media coverage, no infrastructures (all the outdoor playing areas are only for football or, only in some regions and in any case in small measure, rugby, where we're not good either, but for different reasons than Hockey), no kids playing the game... we can only rely on all those girls/boys with Italian heritage growing up in Countries where Field Hockey is at least a reasonably followed and practiced discipline...and Argentina, with their 25 or so million people with Italian origins (it doesn't matter if they date back a few or many years), is always the best place to find some hockey players good enough at least to participate in such kind of events... p.s. however, at least the girls today were not destroyed by GER as it happened last summer against CAN in the Hockey series... and tbh, today everything that could go against them, it went against them...including that silly mistake that led to the final series of penalty corners, the last one of them gifted Germany the second (hope killer) goal...

the good old "catenaccio" is always an option when a team from Italy plays... despite "camping" for 29 out of 30 mins in the Italian "23s", Germany couldn't take advantage of the many potentially dangerous situations and of the 6 penalty corners in their favour... and actually, the Italian girls also had the best chance of them all in this first half (coming off nowhere on a rare offensive trip) and GER were quite lucky not find themselves nehind after the first 30 mins of play... halftime: Germany, 0 vs Italy, 0

today's semifinals women's -57kg Jade Jones vs Marta Calvo Gomez Irem Yaman vs Raheleh Asemani men's -68kg Bradly Sinden vs Si Mohamed Ketbi Javier Polo Perez vs Alexey Denisenko men's -80kg Simone Alessio vs Anton Kotkov Toni Kanaet vs Denys Voronovskyi

final results from today's games: Puerto Rico, 0 @ South Korea, 5 Cuba, 2 @ Chinese Taipei, 2 (yes, it's not a mistake...the game was stopped on a score of 2-2 after 9 innings, as it always happens according to Taipei Baseball Rules)... and tonight it's finally time to get serious...the first WBSC official games are scheduled to start in a few hours... Opening day starters revealed for WBSC Premier 12 The Premier12 2019 will begin on Saturday with the first two games of Group A: the Netherlands will take on the USA; while Dominican Republic will play Mexico. After the press conference, attended by journalists from all over the world, the four teams officially announced their opening day starters. The four participating teams in Premier12 Group A arrived in Guadalajara with a clear goal: advance to the Super Round in Tokyo, Japan. Managers Luis Rojas (DOM), Juan Gabriel Castro (MEX), Hensley Meulens (NED) and Scott Brosius (USA) made it clear during the Premier12 Group A pre-tournament press conference held today in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Netherlands, USA to open the Premier12 Rob Cordemans and Cody Ponce were named the Opening Game starters for the Netherlands and USA respectively. Both right handers will be on the hill for the first game of the WBSC Premier12 2019, tomorrow 2 November, 12:00pm, at Estadio Charros de Jalisco, in Mexico. Asked about the goals of his team, Netherlands Manager Hensley Meulens was positive about their chances. “We want to show that Netherlands belongs to the top 12 teams in the world, and would be very important for us to advance to the Super Round," Meulens said. "We always perform very well in this kind of tournament.” Meulens will give the ball to Cordemans, a 45-year-old pitcher with more than two decades of experience with the National Team, to open the Premier12. The right hander represented his country at the Olympic Games Atlanta 1996, as a 21 year old, and he he was crowned champion at the Baseball World Cup 2011, posting a 3-0 record with a 2.29 ERA. Cordemans’ last appearance with the Dutch National Team was in the Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier, held in Parma and Bologna, where the Netherlands claimed second place. He pitched against Spain, and earned the win. Asked about their opponents in Group A, USA manager Scott Brosius said it will be very tough for the four squads. “We came here expecting a very competitive group and very competitive games," Brosius said. "But as the other three managers said, our goal is to advance to the next round in Tokyo.” To open the Premier12, Brosius will send Ponce to the mound. The 25 year-old right hander belongs to the Pittsburgh Pirates organisation, and finished this season at AAA level. He made five starts for the Peoria Javelinas in the 2019 Arizona Fall League, finishing with a 2-1 record, a 2.35 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 23 innings. Enny Romero to open for Dominican Republic, Eduardo Vera for Mexico Dominican Republic and Mexico also announced the starting pitchers for their game. Enny Romero will take the ball for the Dominican squad, while 25 year-old Eduardo Vera will take the mound for the host team. Luis Rojas, Dominican skipper, said: “We expect a very difficult tournament, against these three amazing teams. Our goal is to qualify and advance to the next round, we know it won’t be easy, but this is the main goal of our team”. "I think it’s the best team to represent our country and I’m sure the fans will follow us along the tournament,” Rojas added. “We have a very talented group, a great mix of young players with great potential, and some veterans with MLB experience.” One of the veterans is Romero. The left-handed starter ended his first full season with NPB team Chunichi Dragons, with a record of 8-10. The powerful lefty pitched in the MLB in five different seasons, playing with Tampa Bay Rays, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals. For the host team Juan Gabriel Castro will give the ball to Eduardo Vera, right hander of Mexicali in the Mexican Pacific League. “It is an honour to represent our country here in Guadalajara”, said the Mexican skipper. “These are three very good teams. We’re going one day at a time, our first game will be against a great team like Dominican Republic, but we’re going to play with our heart.” Vera has pitched 14.1 innings in the first weeks of the Mexican Winter season, allowing only 4 runs with 1.26 ERA. He fanned 14 so far. This year, he pitched in AAA in the Pittsburgh Pirates organisation.

Women's Individual Epee (Tallinn, EST) Final Results Gold: Ana Maria Popescu Silver: Violetta Kolobova Bronze: Sun Yiwen & Zhu Mingye Semifinals: Popescu b. Sun 15-14 Kolobova b. Zhu 15-8 Gold Medal Match: Popescu b. Kolobova 15-13  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://fie.org/competitions/2020/80

here we go...first women's epee event of the year...and first Italian shameful disaster... especially the 4 members of the team who are racing for the Olympic qualification...2 out in the preliminary stages, 2 out in the round of 64 of the main draw... p.s. and also my beloved reigning world champion Nathalie Moellhausen didn't do any better...she lost to an unknown Ukranian (Yuliya Svystil) also in the round of 64... her Italian heritage probably did the damage...

it was Belarus that didn't want to include TKD in the EGs schedule (as they didn't have a lot of Olympic sports nor team sports -only 3x3 basketball and beach soccer were in the Minsk schedule...basically they kept in the program only the sports where they have some kind of tradition and some medal chances)... I don't think it was a ETU fault at all (at least this time)...

I'm just watching right now...and they are actually streaming live for (almost) the entire world game 2 between KOR and PUR, but, since they are using the original Korean broadcast by SBS (audio, graphics, even commercials...are all there), most likely it will end up like yesterday and SBS will finally remove the on-demand video once again... by the way, it looks like it's going to be another one-sided match...KOR are leading 4-0 in the top of the 8 (and they just hit a triple to open this inning)...PUR haven't been capable of scoring a single run in 16 innings (and counting)... somewhere else (in Taichung, TPE), instead, we have already in the bag another warm-up match between Australia and Venezuela...and the Aussies won that game by a score of 1-0, with the decisive run recorded in the 6th inning, thanks to a wild pitch of the Venezuelan pitcher with the bases loaded (and 2 outs)... here's the full game replay still in Taichung (TPE), right now the local Team Chinese Taipei is facing Cuba (1-1 after 3 & 1/2 innings the score)... here's the live streaming (which most likely will stay also on-demand)...

I don't know if they did it live (I was not at home this morning - Italian time), but for sure now there's no sign of that broadcast on youtube right now (they removed the video because of those copyright issues with Korean SBS and all the links on the WBSC site are dead and send you to the WBSC homepage)... if I have some time, tomorow I'm gonna check if game 2 between PUR and KOR is actually streamed live and what happens with the on-demand video... meanwhile the JPN vs CAN matches are still available (and in fact I posted highlights and full game replay links)...

other warm-up games: Venezuela, 0 @ Mexico, 1 https://twitter.com/MexicoBeis/status/1188191698234544129/video/1 Puerto Rico, 0 @ South Korea, 4 unfortunately the Korean broadcaster SBS have stopped the Youtube streaming (copyright issues, they say)...and they keep the pictures of the game exclusively in their VOD section (which is a paid part of their website)...